Prefrontal cortical representation of visuospatial working memory in monkeys examined by local inactivation with muscimol

In primates, dorsolateral areas of the prefrontal cortex (PFC) play a major role in visuospatial working memory. To examine the functional organization of the PFC for representing visuospatial working memory, we produced reversible local inactivation, with the local injection of muscimol (5 mug, 1 mul), at various sites (n = 100) in the dorsolateral PFC of monkeys and observed the behavioral consequences in an oculomotor delayed-response task that required memory-guided saccades for locations throughout both visual fields. At 82 sites, the local injection of muscimol induced deficits in memory-guided saccades to a few specific, usually contralateral, target locations that varied with the location of the injection site. Such deficits depended on the delay length, and longer delays were associated with larger deficits in memory-guided saccades. The injection sites and affected spatial locations of the target showed a gross topographical relationship. No deficits appeared for a control task in which the subject was required to make a visually guided saccade to a visible target. These findings suggest that a specific site in the dorsolateral PFC is responsible for the working memory process for a specific visuospatial coordinate to guide goal-directed behavior. Further, memoranda for specific visuospatial coordinates appear to be represented in a topographical memory map within the dorsolateral PFC to represent visuospatial working memory processes.